Behaviour and Mood Management

Here’s the deal: no matter how you live it life will absolutely have the duality of Yin and Yang. Just as every coin has two sides, hot weather means there is cold weather, light means there is dark, and if there are things we enjoy then there are things we won’t enjoy. This is the nature of existence.

The universe represents everything, and you are playing out an aspect of that infiniteness. That role will certainly take you into both sides of existence. So can you see that it’s possible to take what’s happening to you less personally? Can you see that you’re more an actor on the universe’s stage? That these aren’t your problems, they are aspects of the universe’s script and you’re merely the one playing that scene out? You simply shouldn’t take your identity or beliefs very seriously.

You think this is a complex, deep, foreign idea but it’s not. You do it all the time. Whether you choose to attempt to remember them or not, everyone dreams because that’s how your brain builds the ideas it uses to navigate the world. If you didn’t dream you ultimately wouldn’t learn anything because you couldn’t stitch it into the other things you know. In your dreams you are totally okay with being disappointed, or scared, or hurt because you wake up and write the feelings off as a dream. Well why don’t you do that with the same feelings when you’re awake? You’ve already proven to yourself that you can.

The difference will be that you believe you were just dreaming, whereas you call the other experiences you have: reality. But the border between those two is permeable. That’s why ideas that are too far removed from your belief system simply get called crazy. These are other people’s reality-dreams that are too far removed from your own. For instance, there were many people who looked at the world and thought it certainly appeared flat so they thought the people who said it was round were crazy. That’s how belief works, whether you’re awake or asleep.

There are two primary ways to navigate moving through this universe. The first is to self-reinforce your own beliefs and rigidly call them reality. From that perspective you will be disappointed or angry or upset by anyone who chooses not to share your beliefs regarding your priorities.

These people are easy to spot—they’re always angry or upset about something. They’ve got hundreds of ways for other people to be wrong, or immoral, or lacking in character. If they’re divorced, rather than their ex’s being good people that they couldn’t make it work with, they’ll be idiots or bitches or jerks or losers. In essence, these people’s rigidness about what constitutes proper behaviour is what keeps them perpetually tense and angry and it’s why they can’t form the sort of strong bonds that real unconditional love creates.

Another way to be is; open and flexible regarding what you feel reality is. Then very little is outside of the boundaries of acceptability to you. If a dog barks and wakes you up, you accept that dogs bark, you accept that not everyone was raised to learn to teach their dog not to bark very early in the morning, and you accept that the event has already happened. With a healthy perspective, the person can then wake up and go about their day under the assumption that something good will happen—and maybe even because they’re up earlier than they planned. They will find that good thing simply because they are looking for it. The duality is always there, it’s simply a matter of which side of the coin you choose to look at.

That other person is angry about the dog. The dog shouldn’t bark. That person should have taught it differently. Therefore the dog is pissing the person off, and the owner is labelled an idiot. Meanwhile the healthy person is up having a tea or coffee, enjoying the day because that’s their mindset.

Without all of those rules and lines in their head, they are free to take in and absorb the magnificence of creation because that is what they are looking to find, just as the angry person was looking for reasons to think the thoughts that will dose them with the chemistry for their addictions: disappointment, frustration and anger. That’s also why the angry person will still be talking or thinking angrily about being woken up by the dog even hours or days later.

Learn from angry people. Watch how much they are puppeted around by events in their lives. If it rains on their camping weekend it rained on them. If someone runs a red light, then they hit them. It’s as though the person who did the hitting was literally waiting for a specific driver to run into. If they have a terrible new boss, then the boss is being a jerk to them rather than just being someone who is impacting everyone as they learn their new job . Their ex’s are all terrible people, and any ex-friend too. And they will have a lot of ex-friends, because with all of those rules and lines about what is acceptable and unacceptable it’s virtually impossible for them not to be let down.

Essentially, an angry person thinks every unmet expectation is a failure of the world’s, whereas a healthy person sees an unmet expectation as a mistake on the part of themselves, the thinker. Had they never used their power of thought to build that expectation then they couldn’t possibly be let down by it not happening.

Angry people are teachers. Far from bothering you, you should watch them intently. Try to understand how they come into so much conflict and anger. Why are they always frustrated and disappointed ? (Except in those cases where things are, by fluke, going exactly the way they want.) Witness the connection between their ugly feelings and their rigid expectations.

Know yourself by knowing them. Because in the end, you’re using the same tool to build your reality, and you’re only marginally better because you by chance got healthier programming. But you’re just as blind to enlightenment as they are, so use their extreme qualities to help you see exactly how they come into such a remarkable amount of conflict both inside and out.

Stop being bothered by angry or sad people. Instead learn from them. As the Dalai Lama has said many times, they are our very best teachers and we should be grateful for the lessons they so painfully deliver to us at such a high cost to themselves.
Now go enjoy your day and do it by choice. 😉

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

2 thoughts on “Angry Souls”

sherryNovember 1, 2013 / 10:46 pm

For a long time I chose to be angry at the fact that both my son and I became profoundly bilaterally deaf as a result of a virus, and my daughter is crippled by MS. I chose to try to understand it, why it happened, angry because I could not fix it. I went to group grieving therapy. I went to private counselling. I had wonderful, helpful friends who were there for me. I still chose to be angry and carry the burden of it all on my shoulders, exhausted by the anxiety. Then I started reading Relax and Succeed because a very kind person knew my situation and introduced it to me. I started practicing yoga and exercising at the gym. I started choosing the positive, recognizing other angry people the similarities which I had with them, and not wanting to feel and behave as they did.

I am so grateful for this transition in my life, which I acknowledge I have complete control of. I am accepting these events and circumstances, meaning, I don’t think about them as much or allow them to effect me emotionally, to the degree they once did. As time goes on they occupy my thoughts less and less and I see them more and more as just “the way it is”. I look for the positive in our situations. I make a living from working with deaf people now. I appreciate people with severe disabilities and sit on a Board of Directors to “help”. Scott, you have presented this helpful information in such a way that “clicked” for me. Thank you!

I cannot thank you enough for sharing that Sherry. I have always said, if I can help even one person achieve the peace and contentment that I enjoy for 90% of my life, then all of the effort would be worth it. Thank you for providing evidence for the fact that I’ve done at least that. And remember, all I do is write the words. You’re the one who turned them into a verb in your own life. Congratulations and thank you.